


Interlude (she would bring them to sanctuary).

by orphan_account



Series: The Dogs Days Are Over [3]
Category: Fullmetal Alchemist, Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: Alternate Universe - Post-Canon, Alternate Universe - Zombie Apocalypse, Multi, Xing, Zombie Apocalypse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-24
Updated: 2014-03-24
Packaged: 2018-01-16 19:52:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,037
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1359763
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He blinked at her. Gold irises tinged with a gentle tint of green. The whites of his eyes perfectly so. Not a damned. <em>Not</em> a damned at all, where the eyes were usually the first to go, pecked out by birds or decayed into desiccated sacks sunken deep into the skull. “. . . Lan Fan?”</p>
<p>“You recognise me.”</p>
<p>Alphonse glanced downwards. At May. At Ling. At the panda runt. With a soft smile, he carefully slipped his arms around the half-siblings’ shoulders before returning his gaze to Lan Fan’s. “<em>Give me a moment</em>,” he answered in Amestrisian. She frowned. Closing his eyes he inhaled gently. Opened them again. “Where are we? How did you find me?”</p>
<p>-</p>
<p>(It's the end of the world as they know it, and they pretend they feel fine.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Interlude (she would bring them to sanctuary).

**Author's Note:**

> Since people have been clamouring for a continuation of TDDAO in my LP inbox, here you go!
> 
> **If you haven't read the other two fics in the series, this will not make sense.**
> 
> Unedited/unbeta'd/etc. Enjoy!

When Alphonse awakened at last, Lan Fan detected the abrupt brightening in _chi_ , as though the ribbons connecting him to May, to Xiao Mei, and to Ling—and to herself, she knew privately,  not that that mattered—suddenly began to pulsate with an increased force. May and Ling had fallen asleep at his either side, their heads nodding at his shoulders. Xiao Mei lay curled up in his lap.

Rising slightly up on her position at the fire, she watched him: His eyelashes fluttered. His hands flattened against his thighs; his fingers curved into the fabric of his trousers as though seeking purchase. As though seeking some object lost to the end of days.

Lan Fan fed another scrap of wood culled from the outside of the wagon to the flames. With a rapid check to ensure that the fire would stay within the brazier, she inched towards him. Coughed. Searched for his name on her tongue, the strange formations of the tangled consonants and nasal vowels, curving her mouth in foreign shapes and stretching her lips in ways she had never liked. “Alphonse. Al,” she added, easier than his full name. “Al.”

His eyelids drew over his eyes. A pair of curtains pulled open over a window pane to reveal the glorious gold of the rising sun.

He blinked at her. Gold irises tinged with a gentle tint of green. The whites of his eyes perfectly so. Not a damned. _Not_ a damned at all, where the eyes were usually the first to go, pecked out by birds or decayed into desiccated sacks sunken deep into the skull. “. . . Lan Fan?”

“You recognise me.”

Alphonse glanced downwards. At May. At Ling. At the panda runt. With a soft smile, he carefully slipped his arms around the half-siblings’ shoulders before returning his gaze to Lan Fan’s. “ _Give me a moment_ ,” he answered in Amestrisian. She frowned. Closing his eyes he inhaled gently. Opened them again. “Where are we? How did you find me?”

“We’re near the eastern border of the Song district, and more importantly, we’re safe. For now.” When he parted his lips to begin questioning anew she lifted her hand. Automail. Her fingers felt stiffer than usual, more resistance to her motions, and her frown deepened until the muscles around her mouth ached. “How are you feeling? Are you hurt anywhere?” At his slightly furrowed brow she slowed her speech. “Are you thirsty? Hungry?”

“A bit thirsty, yes. Only my head hurts.” He shook his head, winced, and sighed out a puff of air. “Not a fever. I’m not one of the—” He hesitated. “—the _zombies_.”

She raised an eyebrow. “One of the damned?”

“Is that what they’re called in Xing?” Alphonse pressed his lips together. Tasting the word, as she had tasted his name. “One of the damned, then.”

“I know. We checked your body for bruises and scrapes first.” She dug a waterskin from their remaining supplies and handed it to him. Uncapping the skin, he tilted his head back. Drank, deeply. His throat bobbed while a trickle of water run down the hollow to pool at his collarbone. “You seem healthy enough for a man we found collapsed at the side of the road. What were you doing in Xing?”

“My brother, Winry, Paninya, and I left Amestris after we heard the news.” His voice trembled. “I went to Xing, to warn you, but I had never imagined that it could have spread so rapidly . . .”

“Then, where are the others?”

Alphonse shook his head, again, and winced, again. His knuckles blanched where he gripped the half-siblings’ shoulders tightly. “They went up. North.” As he spoke his words quickened along with the pulsations of his _chi_. His heartbeat .“Brother wanted to come with me, but Winry wa— _is_ pregnant. The _zombies_ —the damned—are slowed by cold. By darkness, as well.” His pupils expanded akin to an Amestrisian camera shutter. “I’ve been travelling by night and hiding by day for that reason; I don’t know if—”

“We know.”

“Ah.” He nodded. Nodded again, smiled.

She stoked the fire once more and held out her hand; when he returned the waterskin she shook it. Empty. Fortunately the rain had yet to cease. By dusk they would have water enough. “Your headache?”

“Mostly gone, thank you.” He paused. Thrummed his fingers on May’s shoulder. “Brother, Winry, and Paninya went north along with some of our neighbours and friends from Rush Valley.” His eyebrows knit together. “I hope Brother isn’t too worried. But—I went east to spread the word. And then I ended up caught up in the apocalypse here. Mm, but that’s how the world works sometimes. And look! You all found me.” Letting go of Ling—to some extent she found the clear preference amusing—he clasped her hand. Automail against flesh. His fingers between hers. “I’m glad I came here after all.” He glanced down at their conjoined hands. She jerked her arm back. “I’m sorry about your people.”

Lan Fan narrowed her eyes. “There’s nothing we can do about it.” His features contorted until his confusion rang clear on his expression. Of course; she had nearly forgotten that Alphonse wore his heart less on his sleeve than on his entire body at once. “We’ve helped everyone we’ve come across. It’s simply easier to travel in small groups; the damned are less likely to notice.”

“Oh.” He looked up to the top and to the right. From her time as a head of guard she could recognise the angle: He was remembering something. His brother’s party, undoubtedly. Travelling in a large group for safety.

“Had we stayed, we would have perished along with them. And that would be disrespected both their memory and their sacrifice.” She opened the door to the outside of the wagon, brought in one of the buckets of water, refilled the waterskin, and began to boil the rest on the fire. “My goal is to safely escort the Emperor of Xing and the heir presumptive of Xing to sanctuary in Ronshito or beyond. From there we can create a plan to save our people and rebuild Xing.”

Alphonse dipped his head. Lan Fan indicated the satchel; cautiously, with an exceedingly slow speed born of a desire not to awaken either of the half-siblings, he reached over to open it. “You’re making soup?”

“Mm.”

“I can cut up vegetables. Which ones?”

“Whichever.”

He followed her advice. Although they had subsisted chiefly on rice gruel and dried vegetables for months, she supposed that this reunion could belie the need for a somewhat tastier meal. Thin soup. A tastier, heartier meal than any they had had since the Apocalypse. Her resultant smirk was rueful enough.

“Could you take over by the fire? I’ll wake up Ling, and May.”

Scooping Xiao Mei from his lap, Alphonse offered the panda his shoulder. He tilted his head to the left, reined his timbre down to a pleasant cordiality. “Could I wake May up myself?”

Lan Fan clanged the ladle against the lip of the pot. Transmuted her voice to ice. “Tend the fire.”

They watched one another. Eyes dark grey as the coming storm against eyes greenish-gold as the rising sun. Dark and light. Day and the night. Yin and yang.

He bowed his head. She regarded it a wise decision. While he peeled himself up from the makeshift bed she knelt beside May, who teetered, dangerously close to falling over for the abrupt lack of support. Cradling May’s jaw in her palm, Lan Fan leaned forward. Inhaled the scent of last night’s breakfast and hours of sleep and a hint almost of something saccharine-fruity-flowery that concerned her on some level she couldn’t quite name. Kissed her mouth.

Observed her eyes.

May shifted her arms; Lan Fan could sense the movements. With her fingers curved inwards May stroked Lan Fan’s cheek with the knuckles of her right hand, held onto her side with her left. “Lan Fan.”

Lan Fan found herself unable to contain her smile. Another day. Another night. Another sunrise-sunset. Alive. _Alive_ , through whatever combination of skill and blind luck and divine intervention. But as the retainer she had come to comprehend that in her mind’s view neither blind luck nor divine intervention could exist. All she could rely on was her skill. And the skills of her travelling companions. “May.”

“I always know it’ll be a good morning when I see you.” Lan Fan felt May’s hand slip off from her side. With her left hand May gently booped Lan Fan’s nose: Her cheeks burst into flame. “Ah, is Al—Al!”

Alphonse’s voice: “May. May! You’re awake?”

“Al!”

Embracing her lover tightly, Lan Fan let go, and May leaped towards Alphonse. She knocked him over. The fire roared and the pot swung uneasily on the jerryrigged hinge. With a swift motion Lan Fan grabbed the pot.

“Be careful.”

Not that May and Alphonse listened, intent as they were on touching and holding and bewildering one another with their state of being _alive_. Lan Fan’s mouth quirked up a the sight of May’s happiness; she could survive off of that joy alone.

Off of May’s joy, and Ling’s.

She tapped Ling on the far shoulder. Seemingly asleep, though she doubted it. His scraggled bangs had grown out—she reminded herself to snip them at some point—and, when not tucked behind an ear, tended to hang over his right eye. “Ling.”

He replied with a half-snort half-snore, and she exhaled until her lungs had emptied. Then she noticed the grin that spread over his features, like the sun parting through the clouds, incapable of containment to the last while it climbed the sapphire skies to its heavenly domain.

She would go to the ends of the earth for that smile, and had.

“Ling,” she said, again, and kissed his neck. The love bite she left blossomed bluish-violet at his throat.

“You make my name sound holy,” he whispered, “like a prayer, and you need to stop that _immediately_ because it’s making me think thoughts very much _not_ divine.” He chuckled. Gripped her wrists. Jerked her towards him until she tumbled into his lap. She rolled forward into her momentum, taking him with her, until _he_ tumbled into _her_ lap.

Her turn to smirk.

He snuggled into her instead. Wriggled his head into her chest and wormed his hands into her armpits as if trying to encompass all of her into all of him. Not that she minded, for his warmth. In the meantime Alphonse and May had calmed sufficiently that they could return to tending the soup. The pairs observed one another’s antics, May clutching on to Alphonse’s shoulders, Ling coiled up in Lan Fan’s lap, and out of nowhere Lan Fan heard laughter.

Her laughter. Their laughter.

She could not remember a time in the past few months when she—when all of them—had been this happy. She dipped into the _chi_ —dipped to feel the ribbons of light pulsing bright and clear around them to light up the darkness with celestial light—and her elation vanished into the night.

At the door. The dark _chi_ of a damned, the ribbons tied off around the core to signify the weight of the dead they carried. And now in the floorboards she could detect the shuddering as the beast gnawed into the wood, splinters tearing flesh from its fingers and skin from its lips. Its blood crumbling like blackened ash from its unveiled veins. The wagon caving inwards under the brunt of the damned’s heaviness.

The party exploded into action: Her pushing Ling from her lap, Xiao Mei hissing on Alphonse’s shoulder, May whipping her head in the direction of Xiao Mei’s twitching nose, Alphonse touching his fingertips together, Ling drawing his sword from the sheath at his hip. Even if not all of them knew the source of the risk or the danger, they _reacted_.

She reached the barricaded doorway before the rest, read the _chi_ as a single wandering damned, broke down the barricades, and lunged with her automail fist. The half-decayed skull crunched beneath the force of fullmetal fury.

No matter the cost. She _would_ bring them to sanctuary.


End file.
